Laurence Housman
wrote an autobiography called
The Unexpected Years
that includes the following story of his sister
Clemence’s
imprisonment for tax resistance during the women’s suffrage struggle.
I believed that tax-resistance, so organized that the government would be
forced to seize not the goods but the persons of the resisters was the best
and most constitutional lines for militancy to adopt. But it required
time — about eighteen months in my sister’s case — to materialize effectively.
And the Militant Leaders, always assuming that they were going to get the vote
in a shorter time than that, though they did not discountenance it, refused to
make it a plank in their organized policy. They preferred the more spectacular
and provocative course of deputations, election-fights, and interruptions at
meetings.
It took my sister Clemence eighteen months and more to get the matter so
arranged that, in her own words, she might give her vote against the
Government “at the
Holloway
polling booth”. It was not much satisfaction to her militant mind, to refuse
to pay taxes, if in the end they could be distrained for. A good many of the
tax-resisters were content with that form of protest; it did not content her.
But the other and better way needed some planning; it also took time. She
rented a holiday cottage, stocked it with furniture not her own, went
occasionally to stay in it, and, when the time came, refused to pay inhabited
house duty which amounted to
4s.
2d. In course of time, after
repeated application, she was summoned, and law costs were added. As there was
nothing on which the court could distrain, the legal process went slowly on,
and the Government, in its vain attempt to extract
4s.
2d. from a pocket which could
not be picked, ran up a bill which amounted to several pounds. When this
enlargement of the debt failed to bring her to reason, arrest and imprisonment
were threatened as the only alternative. A polite emissary from Somerset House
came and interviewed her; and we heard afterwards that he reported her as
being “such a lady”, that it would only need the actual presentation of the
warrant for arrest to bring about submission.
So the next day the warrant was presented, and, failing to take effect, the
warrant officer retired for fresh instructions; and a day later did come with
a reinforcement, and actually arrested her. Like all good comedy there was in
it an element of pain; but it was very funny. My sister said, “Are you going
to walk me to Holloway?” “Oh, no!” she was assured, “We shall take you in a
taxi.” “I shall not pay for it,” she said. “Oh, no, of course not, we shall
pay for it.” I then offered to pay the extra sixpence, if I might come too.
They were most kind about it; one of them, to make room for me, went and sat
by the driver; and so we all drove to Holloway, and as we passed through the
gates, the taxi, for which the Government was paying, registered the exact
amount of the original debt
4s.
2d.
A week later she was out again; and I heard then some of her experiences
during that eventful week of enforced idleness. Knowing her rapacity for work,
“What did you do all the time?” I asked. “I sat and bubbled,” she
said; and I realized that triumphant mental satisfaction might be, for a week
at any rate, a good substitute for industry.
She was interviewed by the governor. “How long are you in for?” he inquired.
“For life,” she told him. What did she mean by that? She explained: “I am here
until I pay; and I am never going to pay.” And she never did, either then or
afterwards, until she got the vote.
The medical officer came to see her twice; it was soon evident they wanted to
release her on the score of health. “You are eating too little,” he said. “I
am not a big eater,” she told him, “even though I lead an active life. Here I
am doing nothing, so I eat less. But I am perfectly well, thank you,” That
excuse having failed, after a week they let her out for no reason stated.
I heard shortly after from a mutual acquaintance that the governor had said to
him, “What did those fools mean by sending us a person like Miss Housman?” It
is pleasant to know that officialdom sometimes looks foolish even to its own
officials.
Housman also takes credit and/or blame for getting Bernard Shaw to speak at a
rally for imprisoned suffragist Mark Wilks:
I must have been a considerable nuisance in those days to authors, actors, and
others of my acquaintance, who were friendly to the cause but did not want to
be bothered by it. It wasn’t their job, any more than it was mine; and though
most of our leading authors signed a declaration in favour, few of them did
more. I did on one occasion get Bernard Shaw to speak at a protest meeting
over the imprisonment of Mr. Wilkes for his wife’s taxes, which she
conscientiously had refused to pay. That secured us a big meeting; he was
genially brutal in his treatment of the situation, and made the unfortunate
Mrs. Wilkes cry by declaring that, were she his wife, he would take all
possible steps to divorce her for so callously allowing him to be imprisoned
for her debts. I had to speak after him, and I said, untruthfully, that I was
sure he had not meant to be unkind. I think he had meant to be, and thought
that she thoroughly deserved it. Mr. Wilkes was, in fact, a willing victim:
though it was perfectly true that, with only a working-man’s wage, he was
unable to pay the income-tax of a wife who was a successful medical
practitioner.
Special mention must be made of one of the many Suffrage Societies which
sprang into existence during the decade before the outbreak of war. With the
Freedom League originated the idea that in view of the dictum that taxation
and representation must go together, a logical protest on the part of voteless
women would be to decline to pay Imperial taxes until they should have a share
in electing Members of the Imperial Parliament. From onwards, Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard had adopted this form of
protest, with notable results. In the following year, some of her goods were
seized, but difficulties occurred, as one auctioneer after another refused to
have anything to do with selling them. When one was finally found, the sale
was attended by a large number of Mrs. Despard’s followers, who succeeded in
holding up the proceedings until requested by her to desist. When her piece of
plate was at last put up for sale, the bidding was very brisk, and the article
was eventually knocked down to a certain Mr. Luxembourg for double its
estimated value. This gentleman insisted on returning it to Mrs. Despard, who
accepted it on behalf of the Women’s Freedom League, among whose archives,
suitably inscribed in memory of the occasion, it holds an honoured place.
In subsequent years, various devices were adopted with the object of
compelling Mrs. Despard’s submission. Thus she, for whom prison had no
terrors, was threatened with imprisonment in default of payment; she was
summoned before the High Court, when, in her absence, judgment was pronounced
against her. On only two other occasions, however, was distraint levied.
, a separate society, with
the above title, was formed, with Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes as secretary,
for experience showed that a special knowledge of the technicalities of the
law was necessary, and special machinery had to be set up. Those who addressed
themselves to this business were rewarded by the discovery of curious
anomalies and irregularities of the law where women were concerned. Thus, for
instance, it was revealed that whereas married women are not personally liable
to taxation (the Income Tax Act of never
having been brought into line with the Married Women’s Property Acts),
nevertheless payment of taxes was illegally exacted of them whenever possible.
With the assistance of the expert advice of Mrs. [Ethel] Ayres Purdie and
others, many cases of injustice and overcharges were exposed and circumvented,
Somerset House officials being mercilessly worried.
Imprisonments for Non-Payment of Taxes
It was in , that the first
imprisonments in connection with this particular form of protest took place.
Miss [Constance] Andrews of Ipswich was sent to prison for a week for refusing
to pay her dog’s tax, and about the same time, Mrs. [Emma] Sproson of
Wolverhampton served a similar sentence for the same offence. The latter was,
however, rearrested, and sentenced this time to five weeks’ imprisonment,
being placed in the Third Division in Stafford Gaol. She thereupon entered on
the hunger strike, and on the personal responsibility of the Governor, without
instructions from the Home Office, she was transferred to the First Division,
where she completed her sentence.
Imprisonments in various parts of the country thereafter took place with some
frequency, but whenever possible this extreme course appears to have been
avoided, and resisters’ goods were seized and sold by public auction, the
officials reserving the right of adopting whichever course they deemed most
suitable. By this means, auctioneers’ sale rooms, country market-places,
corners of busy thoroughfares, and all manner of unlikely spots, became the
scene of protests and demonstrations.
Miss Housman’s Imprisonment
The case which excited the most interest was that of Miss Clemence Housman,
sister of the well-known author, who, having stoutly declined to pay the
trifling sum of 4s.
6d. (which by dint of writs,
High Court Procedure,
etc., in due
course mounted up to over £6), and not having goods which could be seized, was
arrested by the Sheriff’s Officer, and conveyed to Holloway, there to be
detained until she paid. A storm of protest arose, meetings being held at Mr.
Housman’s residence in Kensington, outside Holloway Gaol, and in Hyde Park on
. After a
week’s incarceration, Miss Housman, who had been singularly well treated in
the First Division, was unconditionally released, and on inquiring of the
Solicitor of Inland Revenue how she stood in the matter, she was informed that
it was closed by her arrest and subsequent release.
By way of celebrating victories such as these, the League held a John Hampden
dinner at the Hotel Cecil in , when some 250 guests assembled and listened to speeches from
prominent Suffragists of both sexes, when we may be sure that the moral of the
story of John Hampden was duly pointed, and many a modern parallel was quoted.
A novel feature of the evening’s proceedings was the appearance of a toast
mistress, in the person of Mrs. Arncliffe Sennett.
Mr. Mark Wilks’ Imprisonment
In an incident occurred which
illustrated both the anomalous position which married women occupy under the
law and also the impossibility of enforcing the law where consent is withheld.
Dr. Elisabeth Wilks, being one
of those who held with the Liberal dictum that taxation and representation
should go together, had for some years past refused to pay her Imperial taxes,
and on two occasions a distraint had been executed on her goods, and they had
been sold by public auction. Then it struck her that her “privileged” position
under the law would afford her protection from further annoyance of this kind,
and being a married woman, she referred the officials to her husband. When
application was made to the latter for his wife’s income tax return, he told
the harassed officials that he did not possess the required information, nor
did he know how to procure it. After some delays and negotiations, the
Treasury kindly undertook to make the assessment itself, charging Mr. Wilks at
the unearned rate, though Mrs. Wilks was well known to be a medical woman,
whose income was derived from her practice. After over two years of
correspondence and threats of imprisonment, since Mr. Wilks sturdily refused
to produce the sum demanded, he was arrested on
and conveyed to Brixton Gaol,
there to be detained until he paid. Still he remained obdurate, while friends
outside busied themselves on his behalf. Protests poured into the Treasury
offices, Members of Parliament were inundated with the like, deputations
waited on everybody concerned, and public meetings on the subject were held in
great number. The result was that, at the end of a fortnight, Mr. Wilks was
once more a free man.
Other Tax-Resisters
Legislators had recently provided women with additional reasons for refusing
to pay taxes. In the National Insurance Act
became the law of the land, and defects in that Act as far as it concerned
women, which were pointed out at the time, have become more and more apparent
every year that the Act has been in force. Some few modifications were made in
their favour, but they had no effective means of expressing their views.
Again, by means of a Resolution, which occupied a few hours of discussion on
, Members of Parliament
voted themselves a salary of £400 a year, and only one member, Mr. Walter
McLaren, raised his voice to protest against the fresh injustice which this
proposal inflicted on women, who were not only subject to legislation in the
framing of which they had no voice, but were further called upon to pay those
who thus legislated for them…
The Revenue authorities did not repeat the experiment of arresting any women
resisters on whom it was not possible to levy distraint, with the result that
the Women’s Tax-Resistance League claimed to have a growing list of members
who paid no taxes, and who, in spite of repeated threats of imprisonment, were
still at large.
Distraint for non-payment was, however, frequent, with the result that up and
down the country, and as far north as Arbroath, the gospel of tax-resistance
was carried, and secured many adherents, including members of the enfranchised
portion of the community, some of whom, in their official capacities, gave
public support to the rebels. Many auctioneers of th better class refused to
sell the goods of tax-resisters, and it is on record that one who had done so
sent his fee as a donation to the League.
Two members of the League, Mrs. [Isabella] Darent Harrison of
St. Leonard’s and Mrs. [Kate]
Harvey of Bromley, barricaded themselves in their houses, and succeeded in
keeping the officials who came to make the distraint at bay, the former for a
period of several weeks, and the latter for a period of no less than eight
months. In both cases, an entry was eventually made by force, but much public
sympathy was evinced in both cases, and crowded meetings of protest were held
in the largest local halls available.
It is interesting to record that on , a statue was unveiled in the market-place of Aylesbury to
the memory of John Hampden, who in the time of Charles Ⅰ. had refused the
ship money which that monarch had illegally levied on his subjects. The sum
involved was the trifling one of
20s., but, rather than pay
it, John Hampden suffered himself to be imprisoned. He was subsequently
released without a stain upon his character, and a statue to this rebel stands
in no less hallowed a spot than the House of Commons, of which assembly he was
a Member.
An application on the part of the Women’s Tax-Resistance League of the
twentieth century to be officially represented at the unveiling by Lord
Rothschild of the statue erected to his memory in Aylesbury was met with a
refusal. That the spirit which animated this seventeenth-century fighter was
not, however, dead was evident when, at the conclusion of the official
ceremony, a little procession of tax-resisters, supported by men sympathizers,
approached the statue and silently laid a wreath at its foot…
Tax Resistance
Throughout tax resisters continued to
defy the revenue officials, with varying results. Among those who resisted
paying their taxes for the first time may be mentioned [Mary Russell] the
Duchess of Bedford, Miss Beatrice Harraden, Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, and Miss
[Ethel] Sargant, the last-named of whom presided over a section of the British
Association later in the year, being the first woman to fill such a position.
Mrs. Harvey successfully withstood another siege
in connection with her
inhabited house duty, and her goods, when eventually seized, failed to realize
the sum required by some £8, for the uproar created in the auction-room by
sympathizers was so great that the auctioneer abandoned his task. Mrs. Harvey
also refused to take out a licence for her gardener (by name Asquith), or to
stamp his Insurance card. For these two offences she was sentenced to two
months’ imprisonment, in default of a fine, but was released at the end of one
month, in a very weak condition of health, which was in no way attributable to
her own “misconduct.”
There were many other cases of resistance to the Insurance Act, it being an
open secret that the Freedom League did not insure its employees.
Captain Gonne, who refused to pay his taxes as a protest against the treatment
to which women were being subjected, was also arrested, but was released
within a few hours, the reason being, so it was claimed, that in arresting him
the revenue officials had been guilty of a serious technical blunder.
Several other resisters besides Mrs. Harvey barricaded their houses against
the tax collector, and at Hastings the demonstration arranged in connection
with the sale of Mrs. Darent Harrison’s goods led to an organized riot, the
result being that the local Suffrage Club brought an action against the
Corporation for damage done, which they won. Undeterred by warnings that it
would be impossible to hold a public meeting in Hastings in support of tax
resistance, the League nevertheless determined to do so, and, as a matter of
fact, everything passed off in a quiet and orderly manner, Lady Brassey being
in the chair. In subsequent years, this policy of open and constitutional
rebellion on tax resistance lines has been maintained by Mrs. Darent Harrison.